How Scott Whitlock started their logo design journey

Company name

SoapBox Automation

Overview

The software we're developing will help people automate stuff, whether it be home automation, educational, hobby, or commercial. We are going to release the software for free for anyone who wants to use it. We are also launching a community website at the same time to support that community that we hope will grow up around it. We envision this logo on everything from the website to coffee mugs.

Tell us a bit about who you are and the people you reach

We envision our target audience to be similar to the audience for the online magazine http://makezine.com/ That is, aged 30-54, 90% male, and 85% college educated. "Inventor" would be a good description.

Some core components of the software may be targeted at a commercial software market, so the logo should be targeted towards the community audience, but should not offend the sensibilities of business customers.

Requirements

Text for logo is:
SoapBox Automation

We've decided that the main software product will probably have a mascot, and since I seem to be fond of wolves, I was going to go with a wolf pup... something like this (although we have absolutely no rights to this image, so don't use any part of it): http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/…4707_2.jpg

For the company logo (which is what we're asking for here), I would like to see the wolf theme continued. In this case I was thinking of a stylized *friendly* adult wolf head, drawn with just a few strokes. For example, kind of the way this dolphin is drawn (again, this is not our image): http://www.tattootribes.com/multime…olphin.jpg

Colors:
The main website will have a white background, the text will be gray, and other colors will be used for accents, menus, etc.

Basically:
Simpler is better.

What we don't want:
Please, do *not* use anything to do with the "SoapBox" part of the name. This part of the company name was chosen for interesting reasons, but it has nothing to do with a physical box. Please don't include anything box-like. Also, no robots or machines.

Finished files must be sent in vector format, original PhotoShop or Illustrator.